Cultural Victory

[LeonDeV]

(If I start posting too many threads stop me)

How is it possible to win a Cultural Victory!? (I know how, but what do I need to do) I have yet to win it and I'm getting impatient. I tend to get bored and start conquering other Civs, then I win by Domination or Diplomatic on accident.

I'm guessing the key is religion?

[Unimatrix11]

Indeed the key is religion, music and free speech ASAP. I´ll give you a rough outline:

You need 3 cities with 50K (75K on epic, dunno for marathon or quick) culture in order to win. You should pick those 3 as early as you decide on going for a cultural victory. Production is by far a more important qualifier than commerce is - commerce only generates culture via the slider, and you are not going to use that, until the very end. And even then it will only contribute about 1/3 of your culture generation in those ´big 3´.

So, you want religions - it is not too important wether you founded them yourself or not (though of course it is beneficial of you do), but you want as much religion in your cities as you can get. In all of your cities - not only the ´big 3´. Next thing you want is ´Music´, for 3 reasons: a) The free artist that comes with it, when you manage to get it first. Settle him, in whatever city of the B3 lags behind the other two, culture-wise. b) The Sixtine chapel: Its a huge boost for culture generation if you have many specialits (a lot of food) in the big 3, but not only that, it also will make your state-religion buildings generate more culture. c) Probably most important and undeniable (no one can steal that from you, in contrast to a) and b)): cathedrals. For 3 temples of one religion, you can build a cathedral in one city with that religion. This is why you want as much religion in all your cities as you can get, since each cathedral gives a +50% (!) bonus to culture generation, you want as many of those in your big3 as possible and ASAP. (EDIT: Music also allows you to ´produce´ culture with hammers IIRC - only do this, when in the final stages though)

After music, beeline towards liberalism and switch to free speech. Though it may hurt your economy at that point (most cottages wont be whatever free speech grants bonuses to yet, if you research it really soon, thus being economically inferior to bureaucracy most often), it will boost your culture by another 100% - you really dont want to miss that.

Add the ermitage (nationalism / +100% culture in one city) to the smallest of the big3.

Depending on your overall situation, the final stages can vary:

1. When you are alone on an island (which makes acquiring religions a tad harder) you can start the final push right away. Set culutre to as high as you can afford, and keep clicking ´next turn´ until you win.

2. If you are set in the midst of potential enemies, you will need to research defences (rifling and such), before you go all out for victory, since the AI will come for you. If you have to go on researching anyways, it can be a good idea, to push right through to electricity (broadway - +50% culture in one city), radio (rock´n´roll - dito) and, if needed, mass media (hollywood, dito). Of course these wonders (as every wonder) should be built with comperative culture ratios in mind - meaning you should try to build them in cities #3 and possibly #2 (culturewise) and not #1, since the former two need to catch up with the later - it´s pointless to have 2 100K (epic numbers) cities, while the 3rd one is still at 50K. Chances are you could have won by now, if you had placed your wonders wisely in this case.

It goes without saying, that artists are your most desired great people for most of the time, when you go for a cultural victory - so place your specialists accordingly and consider using the civic ´caste system´ if you could deploy more artists, but the theaters only allow you two per city. If a city, thats not one of the big3, has no chance of ever producing a great person (because it is constantly overtaken by other cities), then you dont need to put artists there, though.

The only difficulty with a cultural victory (if you play a fun level, that´s not too much of challange) is this: If you are a builider (like me) anyways, you have probably experienced the sudden horn of game-over quite a couple of times, where you build away happily while your opponent prepares a big stack, that will attack just the turn when you thought, you gonna rip their a***s, with you infrastructure in like ten turns. Now, going for a CV, all those buildings become ever more tempting, since they are now required parts of your winning strategy - you will build a lot of temples despite the fact, that the happy-cap of that city is still far away, just to be able to build another cathedral. Each temple means 1 or 2 units less, though, and if you dont look out, that will come back at you.

EDIT II: Also remember, though this is not too important, that a building, that is over 1000 years old, will generate twice as much culture as it normally would.

[Nugog]

Unimatrix

The Legendary status level on Marathon is 150K.

And agree completely that the hardest part of a CV is not getting steamrolled by another civ.

It has happened to me too many times when I have focussed too much on culture.

[wodan11]

Any or all of your "big 3" can be specialist cities, running artists, commerce cities (and you crank the culture slider to 100% when you start your "push" for the victory, no later than 1850AD but much earlier is possible), or production cities (making buildings and wonders). Regardless, you'll definitely want as many cathedrals as possible in each of the 3.

At least one of your big 3 should be a GP farm churning out artists.

[Sarco]

Most of this probably has been covered by Unimatrix, but here are my basic strategy pointers:

1) Decide very early at least two cities that should be the culture cities. I say two because I've found it hard to pick the third city that early and I have found it too hard to go all out culture-building in three cities sometimes. Decide the third city based primarily on possible specialsts (food output) and convert it to artist-factory / cultural infrastructure as soon as you can (with caste system).

2) Try to get great artists but save them - don't settle them. They come in very handy in the last few turns since 1) - it's hard to predict exactly when your cities get over the 50k mark and 2) the AI tends to get aggressive when you get close. Obviously you settle them once you can win (or come within a dew rounds of winning) by doing it.

3) Acquire as many religions as you can throughout the game. This doesn't mean you have to found them although that's a bonus. Make sure every religion is present in at least nine cities and build temples in all these cities when you can. Follow up by building cathedrals in the culture cities.

4) If you can, build culture infrastructure in the culture cities, but don't be shy of building units etc there too. Throw in the occasional wonder, Sistine as already stated is exceptional. With all the religious buildings you will have, you might earn a lot from both the Sprial Minaret and the University of Sankore. Remember the hammer bonus you can get from the Apostolic Palace and all those temples.

5) If you haven't been able to finish it off by then, the mass media line of research is a great help both for happiness management and for culture production. Also, corporations produce silly amounts of culture.

6) A little bit of warmongering or aggressive expansion in the early game usually helps. Use diplomacy to build a long-term defensive alliance against aggressive AIs, to try to keep the fighting somewhere else.

Personally I have seldom used the culture slider much except for the very last part. Perhaps that's bad play, but I have focused on defense (in one game I had Genghis Khan ruling one continent and I was alone on the other. He had Shaka, Tokugawa and Brennus as vassals, and he declared war on me every 10-12 years or so. Their fleets were huge, so I basically built huge amounts of ships and stacked units in my culture cities.

[wodan11]

2) Try to get great artists but save them - don't settle them.

Settling the first few as soon as they pop is not a bad option. Especially when you consider you're going to be paying unit maintenance for them all game. Anyway the accumulated culture is equivalent to or surpasses the culture you will get by bombing them at the very end.

They come in very handy in the last few turns since 1) - it's hard to predict exactly when your cities get over the 50k mark and 2) the AI tends to get aggressive when you get close. Obviously you settle them once you can win (or come within a dew rounds of winning) by doing it.

You mean to say, of course, "bomb" not "settle". (By "bomb" I mean do a Great Work or whatever the game calls it.) Settling is joining the city as a specialist and you definitely do NOT want to do this at the end of the game.

4) If you can, build culture infrastructure in the culture cities, but don't be shy of building units etc there too.

I personally would do that only if those cities had nothing else to do, which would be almost impossible as I would be building MANY temples etc.

The only thing the big 3 should be building is things that get them culture. Your other 6+ cities exist solely to support your big 3 and those 6+ cities are the ones who should make units, temples, and everything else your empire needs.

Personally I have seldom used the culture slider much except for the very last part. Perhaps that's bad play,

It's only bad play if you had Towns in your big 3 cities. If you had specialists or production in all 3, then no harm done.

Unless by "last part" you mean the very end of the game and you cranked the culture slider to 100%. In which case you did exactly right. You want to leave the culture slider at 0% all game, and then, assuming you have Towns in 1 or more of your big 3, move the slider to 100% when you're ready. At that point, your big 3 should each be generating at least 750 culture/turn.

I cannot imagine a good CV strategy which utiizes the culture slider at more than 0% during the early and mid game. If I was going for a CV I would never have the culture slider at > 0% until about 50 turns before I was ready to win.

[joncnunn]

Personally, I think the key for cultural victories in BTS is the culture-inducing corporations driven. You'll want some religions for other reasons [mainly financial] but Sushi brings in a lot of culture on most random generated maps.

(I actually achieved my first cultural victory in BTS by going for a space ship victory and having my space ship builds in progress interrupted by a message saying you've won a cultural victory. I hadn't even noticed; I had both Sushi & Creative Constructions. Since then I've paid a bit more attention to the victory status screen so I wouldn't needlessly build space ship parts for a ship that won't get completed.)

[wodan11]

A religion-based CV can be earned much earlier than corps are available. But yes corps are a very viable strategy as well.

[Unimatrix11]

Yeah, i forgot to mention Sushi and Creative Construction. But, as Wodan pointed out, usually, if you plan to go for CV right at the start of the game, those come to late. My earliest was in 1685 - i keep braging that, cause that was an exceptional game - as the incas, i was presented with an opportunity to rush my sole neighbor on the continent and built away undisturbed ever since.

Of course, keeping great artists for ´bombing´, instead of settling them immediately, is the better choice after a certain point. But assuming that your big3 will make around 1K culture per turn in the final rush, the 6K from an artist do not amount to more than six turns, usually. Still, if you get one when your ´3rd´ city is at 50K, while your ´2nd´ is at 60K, producing culture at the same rate, you should certainly keep it and ´bomb´ when #3 hits 69K (epic numbers again). To figure it out exactly usually is too much math for me, and i think, it doesnt make all that much of a difference in the end...

I want to note, that 3x3 (9 cities, 3 religions in each, for 3 cathredrals in the big3) makes things a lot easier, but is not required. It´s entirely possible (for a young man killed in battle... oops wrong one) to do it with like 4 or 5 cities only. Many ways to compensate. Again: The hardest thing to compensate for is production power, to keep up your military (which you wont need, if you are isolated on an island and get things done pretty much, before anyone even shows up or has a galleon).

[joncnunn]

Yeah, the difference is I never shoot for Culture Victory (or any other one) right out of the starting gate; I instead shoot for Technological Superiority, which sometime late middle ages I then start thinking of based on how the game developed (and my mood), which type of victory should I go for.

[wodan11]

I want to note, that 3x3 (9 cities, 3 religions in each, for 3 cathredrals in the big3) makes things a lot easier, but is not required. It´s entirely possible (for a young man killed in battle... oops wrong one) to do it with like 4 or 5 cities only.

If I had 4 or 5 then I would really hunt around for a spot to somehow get to 6. Even if it was a crap ice city. The added # of cathedrals is well worth it.

Agreed though that 9 is not mandatory.

[Sarco]

Settling the first few as soon as they pop is not a bad option. Especially when you consider you're going to be paying unit maintenance for them all game. Anyway the accumulated culture is equivalent to or surpasses the culture you will get by bombing them at the very end.

True. You may benefit more from settling them early, but that also requires you to know or be able to calculate reasonably closely which city will reach the limit last - since all culture gained while waiting for the last city is worthless. For a player who is going for his first CV try, I recommend saving or at least knowing very well which city will lag behind later before you settle.

You mean to say, of course, "bomb" not "settle". (By "bomb" I mean do a Great Work or whatever the game calls it.) Settling is joining the city as a specialist and you definitely do NOT want to do this at the end of the game.

Yes I did mean that, of course

I personally would do that only if those cities had nothing else to do, which would be almost impossible as I would be building MANY temples etc.

The only thing the big 3 should be building is things that get them culture. Your other 6+ cities exist solely to support your big 3 and those 6+ cities are the ones who should make units, temples, and everything else your empire needs.

Yes, I agree this is the optimal play. Im my experience though, I've had to use the cultural cities for unitbuilding sometimes. I'm not saying it's optimal, just that these three cities usually have a decent shield production and it's sometimes better to get a few destroyers out quickly than risking losing another city for example.

[wodan11]

True. You may benefit more from settling them early, but that also requires you to know or be able to calculate reasonably closely which city will reach the limit last - since all culture gained while waiting for the last city is worthless. For a player who is going for his first CV try, I recommend saving or at least knowing very well which city will lag behind later before you settle.

The advice to save the Great Artists generated later in the game (for bombing at the very end) should accommodate for any slight imbalance in the MUCH earlier decision point of settling the first one or two GAs. In addition, you select which cities build wonders, so culture production can be tweaked during course of the game that way too. Lastly, unless you are indeed able to get 9 cities, then you won't be able to build all cathedrals in all 3 of your big 3, so you can select which cities get max cathedrals.